ABOVE: Steve McDonald at the Dec. 17 Martin County Commissioner meeting with an award that recognizes his retirement from IT Director of the county.

FAIRMONT–When Steven McDonald started working for the Martin County IT Department, he was its first and only employee.

By March 1998, information technology had progressed to the point that a dedicated specialist was needed to manage these communications across Martin County. After eight years of working with computers, McDonald went for the position.

“Back in the early 90s, I was at a home show here at the Legion,” he said. “After I graduated from school, I ran into a computer vendor out there that had a booth set up. We started talking and they ended up hiring me in early 1990, so I was there for about nine years.”

Working with computers was not McDonald’s initial career focus. He spent the first 10 years after high school working with the Chicago Northwestern Railroad and Raleigh Motors, traveling often. His priority shifted to a more stationary life after getting married, so he went to college and turned to his interest in computers.

“The first computer I had I bought at a big electronic show up in Canterbury Downs,” McDonald said. “I put it all together. The dual floppy system with an Amber monotone screen, then added a 20-megabyte hard drive, then eventually a color screen. Back in the day, right?”

Stepping into a brand new department at the time, McDonald said he spent as much time learning about the people and departments as he did their tech.

“For the first months I got there, I sat in a corner desk over in this room and spent my time learning all the different departments, what they had, all that stuff,” he said. “We moved forward from there. I developed the budget, started wiring the buildings for local area networks and equipment for future changes that would be coming down.”

Until 2008, McDonald was the sole employee of the IT Department. Everything, from crunching budget numbers to the physical tech work went to him. While the county’s capacities expanded greatly during his time, he said the work didn’t differ greatly.

“You work with the computers,” McDonald said. “You add systems as departments and vendors come out with new systems. A department may work with a particular vendor that works with the data and the things they do in their department. You work with them and install and upgrade the systems to keep them current so they can process and do what they need to do for the public.”

With nearly 30 years under his belt and his department expanded to three people, McDonald said he realized around a year ago now might be the time to step away.

“There’s a lot of other things that have taken point with life in general,” he said. “Of people I know that have been passing away. It got to the point it wasn’t so much job-related. It was other things. I’ve got this far, I can start retiring.”

McDonald said the work he has been able to do for the county has meant a lot to him.

“I’ve been dedicated for 27 years,” he said. “I would do anything, whatever the job required. The satisfaction of seeing things through and things working. I go back to the early days, I spent many nights. I’d be called in the middle of the night for law enforcement, for the 911 dispatch center, making sure that stuff is running and maintained.”

With retirement in front of him, McDonald said he is ready to focus on enjoying life.

“I’m going to probably go down south a little bit this winter,” he said. “Come back and move forward with me. Pick up my hobbies that I like to do, hunting and fishing and stuff like that. I’ve got some projects around the house I need to work on finishing I’ve started over time and pushed off until I was retired.”